Manhattan Movement & Arts Center presents The Playground, a workshop series for professional dancers from Monday, February 28, 2011 through Friday, March 25, 2011 at the Manhattan Movement & Arts Center at 248 W. 60th Street, NYC (between Amsterdam and West End Avenues) in the Lincoln Center area. The workshop will be held every weekday from 1-3pm. The entry fee is $5, payable at the door in cash only.

Conceived by Gregory Dolbashian and Loni Landon, The Playground is an open forum for professional dancers to participate in the processes of New York City's most exciting up-and-coming choreographers. This open-door workshop series builds a community of movement and artistic exchange in a non-competitive and highly motivated dance environment. The program functions strictly on a donation-based entry fee for participants, allowing dancers to freely experience each choreographer’s methods and ideas while the choreographers showcase their brands of movement and concepts, all without financial strains.

The Playground is sponsored by Home4Dance, the premier online network dedicated exclusively to dance. Their mission is to empower the dance community by providing the most innovative technologies to maximize career and business opportunities across the dance industry. Every day, hundreds of new users are joining H4D including Dancers, Teachers, Choreographers, Dance Companies, Institutions, Studios, Casting Directors, Talent Agents and more... www.home4dance.com

Gregory Dolbashian was born and raised in New York City Gregory and made his professional stage debut at the age of eight with the Glimmerglass Opera Company. Soon after, he was cast in the Philip Glass/Robert Wilson world tour of Einstein on the Beach. Gregory received his dance training at the Alvin Ailey School on a fellowship scholarship and then graduated cum laude from SUNY Purchase dance conservatory wHere he studied composition with Kazuko Hirabayashi. Since then he has gone on to dance and choreograph with a variety of artists, performing with Patrick Corbin, Nelly van Bommel, Sylvain Emard, and The Chicago Ballet. He was resident choreographer for both Chicago Ballet’s spring season in 2008 and CorbinDances in 2007. Gregory’s works have been performed at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival’s Inside/Out (MA), Joyce SoHo, Alvin Ailey Studio Theatre (NY), Dance Place (DC), Athenaeum Theatre (Chicago), and shows in New York as part of the Reverb Festival, the Dance Sampler at Symphony Space, and a self-produced collaboration with Sidra Bell at the Gershwin Hotel. He recently showed his work as part of the Emerging Artists Program at DTW’s Summer DANZ Festival and was also recently accepted into The Bessie Schoenberg Residency at The Yard for emerging choreographers. His company, The DASH Ensemble, made its debut in December 2009 at Joyce SoHo. The company has performed at Dance Theater Workshop, Symphony Space, The Skirball Center at NYU, and Jacob's Pillow. Gregory will take his company to The Joyce Theater in June 2011 as part of the Gotham Arts Summer Matinee Series.

Loni Landon, born and raised in New York City, received her training from the NYC High School of Performing Arts, Dance Theatre of Harlem, The School at Jacob's Pillow and The Scholarship Program at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. In 2005, under the direction of the late Benjamin Harkary and Larry Rhodes, she received her BFA in dance from The Juilliard School. After graduation, she worked with Aszure Barton on the opening of the Baryshnikov Arts Center before joining Ballet Theater Munich, under the direction of Phillip Taylor, under whose guidance she began to explore her own choreography. From 2007-2009 she performed with Tanz Theater Munich, under the direction of Henning Paar. During her time in Munich, she was exposed to a variety of European choreographers: Jiří Kylián, Stephan Thoss, Rui Horta, Robert North,Tony Rizzi, Cayetano Soto, Mirko Hektor, and Marco Goecke to name a few. In 2009 Loni was a finalist in the Hannover International Choreography Competition. Her work has been shown in The State Theater of Munich, HT CHEN'S NewSteps Choreography Series, The Dumbo Dance Festival, The Dance Gallery Festival at The Ailey Theater in NYC, and at SUNY Purchase. She has been invited by Dance-Form's International Productions to perform in Guatemala and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Most recently, Loni was the winner of Northwest Dance Project's "Pretty Creatives'" Choreography Competition. She has been commissioned to create works for Northwest Dance Project, Mystic Ballet, and the "Next" commission from CityDance Ensemble, in Washington DC.

About Manhattan Movement & Arts CenterManhattan Movement & Arts Center was developed by Rose Caiola as the home of the Manhattan Youth Ballet, a graded, pre-professional ballet academy and performance company. Ms. Caiola, a former dancer and actress, founded the academy in the fall of 1994 as Studio Maestro at 48 W. 68th Street, and today serves as the youth ballet’s executive artistic director.

The school is modeled after the European academies and adheres to the French School of classical ballet technique. Under the direction of Francois Perron, managing artistic director, the Manhattan Youth Ballet has acquired a reputation for excellent teaching in an intimate and individually supportive environment. The school’s graduates have danced professionally with American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater, Ballet de España, San Francisco Ballet and Complexions.

As the ballet academy grew, the search for a larger space inspired in Ms. Caiola a highly personal vision of a studio and theater complex that would encompass all aspects of dance education and performance.

mmac opened its doors in June 2008, occupying a dramatic bi-level space within The Element, a luxury high-rise condominium. In addition to the Manhattan Youth Ballet, mmac’s studios and theater host daily adult dance and fitness classes, the mmac Kids program, summer intensive programs, as well as an array of performances and special events.

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